And so Christmas truly is over now...

Today is my last official day of annual leave, so, apart from the weekend, Christmas is truly over.  I commiserated this fact by watching The Muppet Christmas Carol, as I missed it over the actual Christmas period (it was on but I was busy in the kitchen for most of it).

Cold finally seems to have left after 10 or so days, still feeling a little drained tho.  This means I haven't got done quite as many things as I'd hoped I would, but not to worry, there's still the weekend and tbh we have the rest of our lives to be "sorting out stuff" LOL!

Today also marks my first week of not drinking alcohol, although if I'm honest, one week isn't really a challenge. Do I feel any better for not having drank at all this week?  Not really...but that's probably more down to the fact I've had the stupid bad cold.

I tried to start a hashtag game on Twitter a few days ago.  Inspired whilst watching Shallow Grave with my eldest step-daughter (first time for her), we were discussing how films would be a lot shorter if certain things happened...a few people ran with it and I must say I was enjoying it...will list a few here that I really liked (including some of my own - so sue me!):

FallenAngel2106  

Alex, David & Juliet call the police on discovery of dead man in room, handing over the money too ~ Shallow Grave #howtomakefilmsshorter

Kristieface  

It's genuinely just a fucking wardrobe -Narnia #howtomakefilmsshorter

SirFletchPhelps  

Dante doesn't bother answering the phone. Clerks #howtomakefilmsshorter

V511  

Mistaken for a whale by Japanese fishing boat - Jaws #howtomakefilmsshorter

toysintheattic  

Nemo stays with the school. - Finding Nemo #howtomakefilmsshorter

V511  

'Who is Keyser Soze?' It's that dude over there who looks like Kevin Spacey #howtomakefilmsshorter

FastOlly  

Half day closing at the bookshop - Notting Hill #howtomakefilmsshorter

FallenAngel2106  

Inigo Montoya's father only suffered a flesh wound ~ The Princess Bride #howtomakefilmsshorter

jeskaruthbow 

Brad and Janet don't get a flat....Rocky Horror #howtomakefilmsshorter

FallenAngel2106  

Horton DIDN'T hear a Who ~ Horton hears a Who#howtomakefilmsshorter

SimonAstrocreep 

Bella staked edward-twilight #howtomakefilmsshorter

SeverenS4R 

There can be more than one - Highlander 1, 2 & 3 #howtomakefilmsshorter

SeverenS4R  

Harry never met Sally - When Harry Met Sally #howtomakefilmsshorter

And the one I'm personally most proud of...but is possibly quite wrong...

FallenAngel2106

Schindler can't find a pen ~ Schindler's List #howtomakefilmsshorter

Come join in and play :) 

I had most excellent Doctor Who dream last night...

I woke up this morning after having a very exciting Doctor Who related dream.  For once, it was more like an episode and no kissing of timelords took place.

Although I can see things clearly in my head (as I can recall dreams quite well, plus I also spent my initial waking moments going over the dream to help the remembering), I doubt in this blog I would get it all down in any way that you would see the same pictures I can...but I'll give you the brief low down (as I did to the meester this morning).

The dream (or episode!) began with my daughter (Claudia) and I heading off to a museum (think cross between a big old Georgian house and the Natural History Museum).  As we come through the main part of the museum, you can't help but notice the number of shields or statues holding shields (think crusades types here).  A banner reads something like (as it's very hard to read in dreams) "The shields shall bring them together and they shall rise".

We then head upstairs to a very surreal room.  Here the room is full of statues and artwork of the "follow you wherever you go" type.  Things feel very old and yet there is some form of hologram stuff going on.  I realise Claudia is no longer by my side and I look for her.  I see her lay on a slab in the room, talking to a hologram-esq statue that is lay next to her.

When I get there, I see it is the Tenth Doctor (or at least a statue of him sleeping).  I lie down next to him, pull out my phone, and take a photo of us.

Then things get weird.  All the statues with the shields begin moving and they aren't being nice about things.  They are trapping people.  This is happening all over (don't ask me how I know).  The Tenth Doctor has gone.  It would appear the photo taking woke everything...

My "dream perspective" then appeared to shift to the Tenth Doctors.  He managed to escape the room before the shields trapped him there, knowing he needed to go back in time to before he was frozen as the sleeping statue to fix things to stop the shield statues from taking over the place.  He sees himself falling through time (he has no T.A.R.D.I.S. as he's not the latest incarnation of The Doctor).  Whilst falling through these times, he sees himself in many times and faces.  At one point he is somehow falling/climbing down a slowed down Eleventh Doctor (who is with Amy)...as he gets to his ankle (Tenth Doctor is head down here), he sees a year (1978 as it goes) crudely written on it.  It is then he realises he has been very clever, and that he has already planted clues to the dates/time he is passing through...

Sadly I wake before the solution to the whole thing happened...but it was all very exciting!  My own private Doctor Who episode!  Here's hoping it was a two-parter...

My daughter narrates EVERYTHING she does

My daughter is a chatterbox.  She doesn't stop.  From the moment she wakes in the morning until she goes to sleep at night it is chatter chatter chatter ALL THE LIVE LONG DAY!

I think she is virtually incapable of doing any task without narrating what she is doing.

She was very chatty as a baby too.  From the moment she discovered she could make a noise, she would.  She wasn't a crying baby (ok there was a phase involving teething), but good lord she would baby babble for Britain.  And they were (baby) sentences too, conversations took place, admittedly only she knew her half of the conversation, but they took place nonetheless.

By the time she got to nursery she already had lots of words and sentences and tbh sounded like a little old fashioned old lady ("golly gosh" was a favourite phrase).  By the age of 3, the nursery staff often forgot she was so young because she had such a good vocabulary.  Our fault, of course...we stopped dumbing down words (perhaps too early!?!).  

Now, aged 6, we still get complimented on her vocabulary.  We still don't dumb down, and questions of "what does that word mean, Mummy?" get explained - so at least she knows what the words being used around her mean.  This has been amusing in her younger days...using overheard words in completely the wrong context.

But she finds words very important, as they are.  She LOVES to read.  She reads a lot.  By the age of 4 she had over 200 books.  She probably has a number way over that still, even though we have donated many of her baby books to charity - to put it in perspective, she got a set of 10 Jacqueline Wilson books for Christmas, along with two annuals and a beautiful musical pop up Peter Pan...so the numbers increase regularly!  

Currently Roald Dahl is a favourite, which pleases me greatly.  We did have an issue that her school library wouldn't let her take any Dahl home as "she wasn't old enough".  I was quite surprised by this, so sent her back in to ask again stating that Mummy said it was ok.  I was fully prepared to head into the school had she not come home armed with a copy of The Twits :)

Anyhoo, I digress from my original passing thought of her narrating the things she does.  Many think that comes from me, but I know it actually comes from her Daddy.  He's a lot more wordy than he realises...so for once, I don't have to take the blame...